In this episode, Brooke Davis explores the crucial role of nutrition in hormonal balance, with a specific focus on perimenopause and menopause. She underscores the importance of adequate calorie intake and balanced macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats), along with the essential roles of B vitamins and cholesterol in hormone production.
Brooke emphasizes the significance of reducing added sugars and processed carbohydrates, increasing fiber consumption, incorporating fatty fish and fermented foods, and ensuring a diverse intake of fruits and vegetables. Throughout, she offers targeted strategies for managing hot flashes, improving sleep quality, reducing mood swings and anxiety, supporting weight management, and maintaining bone density.
This comprehensive approach to nutrition for hormonal balance during perimenopause and menopause underscores Brooke Davis’s expertise in women’s wellness and functional nutrition.
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Contents
Disclaimer: The content provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers. With any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast.
Any information provided about nutrition, supplements, or fitness is based on personal experience. It should be discussed with your health care provider before making any changes to your diet or lifestyle. Remember, your health and well-being are unique to you. What works for one person may not work for another.
So, always consult with your medical professional to determine what is best for you. Welcome to the Fitness Simplified podcast. I’m Brooke Davis, women’s functional nutritionist and fitness specialist with Elysian Women’s Wellness, and I’m here to simplify your fitness.
Welcome to another episode of the Fitness Simplified podcast. Today we are going to go over the vital role that nutrition plays in hormonal balance. I’m going to be referencing perimenopause and menopause, but really this applies to hormonal balance throughout your entire life. Where menopause is a completely natural phase in a woman’s life. It brings about some significant hormonal changes that can cause a really wide variety of symptoms and health challenges.
With the right nutritional strategies, you can support your body, support your hormone function and creation. It will really improve your overall well-being during this transition. Today, we are going to explore the foundational nutrition habits that are essential for supporting hormone balance. From the importance of adequate calorie intake and nutrient-dense foods to specific dietary practices that will help bring you some relief from those common menopausal symptoms. We will cover it all.
Whether you have started your menopausal journey or not, this episode is packed with valuable information and practical tips to help you feel your best. So grab a cup of tea, get comfortable, and join us as we explore the world of nutrition and hormones. Step one is to eat enough calories, protein, carbs, and fats.
Adequate calorie intake makes sure that the body has enough energy to not only perform daily functions, but also maintain your hormonal balance, being able to create those hormones. Both carbs and fats are part of the essential macronutrients that play a huge role in hormone production and regulation. B vitamins and cholesterol are the foundational building blocks of most steroidal hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.
So without these, you’re really not giving your body a fighting chance. So when it comes to calories, sufficient calorie intake prevents the body from being in a state of stress. And when we are talking about hormones, and you are looking at the directional chart of how hormones are produced, cortisol will reroute the energy needed for the rest of your sex hormones.
So if you are stressed and your body is getting the signal to produce cortisol, which is your stress response, then the energy is being sent there instead of to estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA. It is skipping over those, it is going straight down instead of over, essentially. So making sure that you are eating enough.
This is one of the most common things I see. People come to me and they are eating in their diet phase. When they are trying to lose this belly fat that has come on suddenly, and they are eating 1,200 1,000 calories or less, and not seeing the changes that they want. And this is partly why.
So making sure that you are eating at an absolute bare minimum, 1,500 calories for most people, in terms of hormonal balance. That may not be where your deficit necessarily is, but you have to get your body out of that state of stress, get it developing the hormones in the right order properly, enough of them, in order to then go into a deficit and see the results that you want. So that is step number one.
And then, of course, we want protein. So protein is the main building block of muscle. This is going to help you maintain and build muscle mass, which especially in perimenopause and menopause, when your estrogen is declining, your bone density is declining, as well as your muscle mass.
So making sure that you are getting adequate protein is going to help support your bone density. It is also going to reduce weight gain. That is scientifically proven.
If you are eating adequate protein, and when I say adequate, I don’t mean the RDA, because that is basically what you need to not die. So when it comes to protein, there are some various calculations. Technically, it’s like 1.6 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight.
You can do some various calculations with it. Generally, for most women, I would say 100 grams at an absolute minimum. Most people are going to thrive between 130 grams and 160 grams.
I really don’t like going over 160 grams for most people, depending on how many calories they’re eating. If they are overweight, and they are not trying to be in a hypercaloric deficit, then 160 might be okay. Generally, about 150, 130 to 150 is going to be the sweet spot.
Then going on to carbs, of course, complex carbohydrates are a steady source of energy. They give us fiber. They help regulate blood sugar levels.
Then they are fuel. Carbs are our body’s main and preferred source of energy. That in and of itself is important.
Then of course, blood sugar levels, satiation, and that energy are all going to be important for hormone stability, balancing insulin levels. Then with healthy fat, healthy fats are, like I said, the building block for hormone production, that cholesterol. Omega-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory properties.
They’re going to support your brain health. Then, like I said, B vitamins and cholesterol are literally the foundational building blocks of your steroid hormones and your sex hormone. Making sure that you are getting adequate amounts of the… Let me backtrack just a little bit.
Carbs, when it comes to carbohydrates, less than 130 grams of carbohydrates is, in my opinion, low carb. Some people say 100, but I don’t think anybody needs to basically ever be below 130 grams of carbohydrates, especially if you are training in any capacity, which we’re going to get to that, but you also should be training. Then fats, if you are eating adequate intake, then you never want your fats to drop below 20% of your diet, essentially.
However, generally, if you are not eating enough, then that’s also going to be an issue. Generally, 30 grams is considered low. 30 grams of fat would be considered low.
Anywhere between 40 and 80 grams of fat, depending on how many calories you are eating, would be a decent balance of fats. That being said, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that dietary fat intake is positively associated with estradiol concentrations in premenopausal women, which means that if you’re not eating enough in general, and then you’re trying to stick to a low-fat diet, that is going to make menopausal transition much, much harder for you. Even if you’re not menopausal, it’s going to be an issue.
Basically, getting enough fat is going to help balance the estrogen in your body. Number two, reducing added sugars and processed carbohydrates. When it comes to added sugars, and this is not including naturally occurring sugars that are in fruit, things like milk.
There are fruits and other sorts of vegetables like carrots, beets, things like that. Talking about purely added sugars, when it says sugar on the label, you want to keep that down below 25 grams per day, and then reducing also processed carbohydrates, so things like bread, crackers, pasta, et cetera. It’s not that you can’t have those things, and more often than not, especially when it comes to dieting and being at calorific deficit, they’re trying to lose fat, right? I’m trying to get them to eat more.
Eating a lot of unprocessed food actually makes you, it’s hard to do, to get enough purely unprocessed food, because it’s a ton of volume and it’s not a lot of calories. Generally, I am encouraging people to eat some pasta, eat a piece of bread, whatever. Find something you enjoy and incorporate it into your food.
Using that 80-20 rule, when it comes to hormones, especially through perimenopausal menopause, it may be more like a 90-10 rule, but that is dependent on the person. The excess sugar, processed carbohydrates, now we’re talking about leading to insulin resistance. It is really easy to overeat those things.
They are often hyperpalatable. They have also excess fat in them. That is a contributing factor to weight gain, of course, inflammation, all of which can just exacerbate basically stress on the body, making hormonal imbalances and that rollercoaster of hormones through perimenopause and menopause even worse.
In terms of the benefits of reducing added sugars and processed carbs, you’re reducing your risk of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, especially, again, through perimenopause, we are at an increased risk because of that decrease in estrogen. It becomes even more important to make sure that we are not getting too much of these things. It helps you maintain your weight, lowers inflammation.
Inflammation is also a huge thing, again, in menopause and perimenopause, because estrogen helps reduce inflammation. When the body is not getting that, whether it be in our joints, in our brain, in our gut, that is all causing inflammation throughout the body. Being able to reduce that by taking out other things that are increasing inflammation to the body are just going to help minimize the symptoms that you’re having.
Based on that, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition has shown that high sugar intake is linked to increased inflammation and oxidative stress, all of which, again, disrupt that hormonal balance. Along with the theme of carbohydrates, we want a high fiber intake. We’re talking 25 to 35 grams a day, 25 absolute minimum.
The average American diet, I believe, is less than 12. Dietary fiber helps with digestion. It feeds your gut microbiome, helps regulate your blood sugar level, and helps get rid of excess hormones. It helps excrete estrogen from the body and through the detox pathways.
Then it also helps keep you full. A study in the Journal of Nutrition found that high fiber intake is associated with lower estrogen levels or healthy estrogen levels, not like tank, as well as reduced risk of breast cancer. Estrogenic cancer is, I don’t want to say very common, but that is an issue when it comes to looking at high estrogen levels.
Making sure that we are supporting that by supporting those detox pathways through getting enough fiber is super important. Then including flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower, hemp, chia seeds, seeds of all kinds. You don’t have to cycle them.
This is something that has come about. All seeds are beneficial at all times of the month for women. Seeds are high in fatty acids, again, getting that high fat intake helps support hormone creation.
They have fiber and they also have phytoestrogens, which can help support healthy hormone balance. As far as that goes, you’re looking at one to two tablespoons a day, I would say, at a minimum. In terms of incorporating them, flax seeds, I take a flax seed oil, but you can also put flax seeds in a smoothie, you can put them on salads.
Then pumpkin seeds, I’m always putting pumpkin seeds on my salads. That’s my favorite thing to put on salads. Sunflower seeds, same thing.
Hemp seeds, I tend to put those in yogurt or smoothies. I always feel like I waste them in salads because they get stuck to the side of the bowl and they’re so little. Then chia seeds, you can put them in oats, you can put them in smoothies, you can make chia pudding out of them.
Those are my top go-tos. In terms of getting these in your diet, research published in Menopause Journal found that flax seed supplementation specifically can actually reduce hot flashes in menopausal women. That, they believe, has to do with the phytoestrogens in it.
That is a debated topic and I believe it’s a little more bio-individual when it comes to soy as another phytoestrogen. Some people find that they feel better on soy, some find that they feel worse. That’s another thing that you can play around with.
We’re going to talk about that in a little bit later episode, but on the phytoestrogens topic. Next habit is fatty fish two to three times a week. This is also optional to supplement.
You’re going to be better off getting it, again, from your food. Fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, sardines, they are high in omega-3 fatty acids. When we’re looking at the ratios of omega-3 to omega-6s, we want to balance that.
We normally get a lot of omega-6s and that is vegetable oil, peanut oil, just mostly the conventional oils that we have in our foods. These omega-3 fatty acids, they do have anti-inflammatory properties, which in turn supports hormone production with that cholesterol formation. You do want wild-caught fish, not farmed, which we’ll get into in a second.
Wild-caught fish generally contains higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids. We’re talking heart health, brain health, inflammation reduction. Then there’s lower contaminants.
Wild fish tend to have lower environmental toxins compared to farmed fish. There is fewer antibiotics. Farmed fish are treated with antibiotics in order to prevent disease in their crowded living conditions, which wild-caught fish are less likely to be exposed to.
In my opinion, honestly, they taste better because they have just a normal diet out in the wild versus whatever they’re being fed, their fish paste that is being tossed into their cages. They have better texture, better taste all around. Then, of course, there’s the environmental impact.
That is just my two cents on why wild-caught is better. Of course, like I said, in terms of getting those omega-3 fatty acids, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that omega-3 fatty acids can also help reduce the frequency and severity of hot flashes. Make sure you are eating your fish.
Then fermented foods. Gut health is a huge component of hormonal health. Again, talking about those detoxification pathways and making sure that estrogen is being excreted from the body in the way that it should.
Fermented foods like sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, miso, fermented pickles, and probiotic yogurt are going to support your gut health along with that fiber intake. Not only they do have fiber in them, but they are introducing new gut bacteria to your microbiome. They help support digestion, nutrient absorption.
Then, of course, I just talked about regulating estrogen level. A study in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry talked about the role of gut microbiome in estrogen metabolism. The strobilome, it refers to the collection of gut bacteria that are capable of metabolizing estrogen.
They break down the estrogens in order to excrete them from the body. These bacteria produce enzymes, beta-glucuronidase, which then helps convert estrogen into its inactive or active forms and, again, sends it out to the body where it needs to go. By having these gut bacteria, feeding them the right things, having a wide variety of them, you’re efficiently metabolizing, eliminating excess estrogen.
This helps prevent estrogen dominance, which, of course, has a myriad of symptoms like weight gain, mood swings. Then the risk of estrogen-related cancers, as well as, again, the rollercoaster of perimenopause and menopause that is already occurring. Moving on to the next one is cruciferous vegetables. Incorporating vegetables like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus into your diet on a weekly basis. This is going to help support the detoxification of estrogen and, of course, balance hormones overall.
When it comes to these types of vegetables, they have diindolylmethane or DIM, which is also a supplement, but they have that compound in them and that helps break down estrogen and get it out of the body in excess amounts. It also helps support the liver because of that detoxification pathway and, of course, they are full of vitamins and minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory compounds. Next, I want to talk about the variety of foods.
The wider variety of colors of fruits and vegetables that you can get ensures that you are getting a wide range of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that, of course, support your overall health. Also, that diversity, the more diverse you can eat in general, the more food that your gut microbiome is going to be able to eat off of and the wider variety that is going to survive and thrive in the gut, which is what you want. Eating that rainbow, I like to shoot for five different colors a week of fruits and vegetables.
Again, it provides that diverse range of nutrients and then antioxidants can help reduce that oxidative stress and, of course, also your immune system, which can kind of go in the tank during perimenopause and menopause, but especially when you are having hormonal fluctuation. Then, next, we are talking about protein. You want to try and get organic beef and poultry.
I know that this is not always cost-effective for people or affordable for people. That’s totally fine. This is just something that, if you are able to buy half a cow, freeze it.
Choosing organic is going to help avoid the exposure to added hormones and antibiotics, which can, of course, impact your endocrine system. The studies shown say that there is just minor amounts that end up in our food. However, with the amount of endocrine disrupting chemicals that we have, everything is just a little amount.
Everything is below toxic levels, but when you add it all together and look at our lives, we are living in a huge pool of just minor amounts of added toxins and exposures to synthetic hormones. In my opinion, the more you can reduce that, the better. This is one way to do it.
This also helps support cleaner environmental practices, more sustainable eating when it comes to, of course, the raising of the beef. If you can buy locally, that’s even better. Support your local economy.
Then, last and certainly not least is hydration. Staying hydrated is so, so important for just overall health, but can really impact how the body manages menopausal symptoms. Water plays a huge role in temperature regulation, joint lubrication, as well as transporting the nutrients that your body is absorbing.
As far as reducing hot flashes, night sweats, increasing digestion with bloating, those are all things that are going to be supported through adequate hydration. Then, just talking about skin, dryness, energy levels, all of those things can be improved through staying hydrated. Generally speaking, you want to aim for at the very minimum half your body weight in ounces.
I like to tell my clients to aim for a gallon. If you don’t get there perfect, hopefully you ended up at 80 to 100 ounces, which I think is the sweet spot for most people. Going on to specific practices in terms of nutrition, things that are going to help support specific symptoms.
The first thing we’re going to talk about is hot flashes because that is the most common. The first thing is going to be reducing your caffeine intake. Limiting caffeine to 200, 300 milligrams at the very most can manage hot flashes as just having that caffeine can trigger them.
Ideally, honestly, I would say keeping it to one cup of coffee. If you can reduce caffeine completely or eliminate caffeine completely, you might be better off. You might not though.
Studies have officially shown that it can increase the severity of hot flashes though. Then alcohol. I know the nightly glass of wine feels like a must.
However, reducing your alcohol intake to at least one to two drinks per week. Again, if you can cut it out completely, it could help alleviate those hot flashes. Alcohol has been proven to worsen them despite how it feels at the time.
There is some things that show that alcohol may temporarily improve them because it increases your estrogen, but that is not a long-term or a method that I would suggest. Overall, research shows that alcohol makes hot flashes and night sweats worse, along with the fact that it disrupts your sleep, which I know is also an issue in perimenopause menopause. Then going on to soy products.
We talked about the phytoestrogens. These are plant compounds that essentially mimic estrogen in the body and may help reduce the frequency and severity of hot flashes. There are phytoestrogens found in other products like the flax seeds that are not soy-based.
Some people find the effect of soy to be unfavorable. They don’t get the same responses they do from flax seeds, but there has been a meta-analysis that was published in Menopause Journal that found that soy isoflavones can significantly reduce hot flashes in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. Again, other studies have shown that flax seed or flax seed oil can help reduce hot flashes as well.
Flax seeds are rich in lignans, which is a type of phytoestrogen. All of those just help balance estrogen levels. Then talking about hydrating foods can help support hot flashes as well or help minimize hot flashes.
Cucumbers, watermelon, and celery are all about staying hydrated and helping maintain your body temperature, which can potentially reduce hot flashes. Those would be the nutritional strategies for reducing the impact of hot flashes.
Reducing caffeine, eliminating or reducing alcohol, testing out the soy products or at least the flax seeds, and then focusing on hydrating foods like cucumbers, watermelon, and celery. If you are struggling with sleep-impaired menopause, which is the second probably most common complaint I hear, there are a few nutritional strategies that you can use. The first is one, making sure that you are getting enough calories overall.
Going back to step number one. Then number two, getting a small balanced snack before bed. A carbohydrate, some sort of fat, and then a protein can be really beneficial for maintaining your blood sugar levels throughout the night, which is going to reduce a cortisol response.
A lot of times it can be a drop in blood sugar that causes cortisol to spike during the night, which is part of the job of cortisol, which causes you to wake up and then not be able to go back to sleep. To combat that, having that small snack before bed will just help maintain your blood sugar levels through the night. Another nutrient that is beneficial to improving sleep quality and reducing insomnia is going to be magnesium.
We’re looking at black beans, spinach, peanut butter, avocado, and then pumpkin seeds, which we talked about before. It is proven that magnesium can improve sleep quality and duration. Then with magnesium, you’re also looking at dark chocolate, which is also beneficial for the mood, which we’ll get to in a second, but it can just help you feel good.
You want a dark chocolate with at least 70% cocoa content. Make sure you are looking for something that is 70% or higher. Then tart cherry juice is another nighttime snack that you can have paired with, again, something that is going to help stabilize blood sugar.
Tart cherry juice is high in melatonin, which can help regulate your sleep cycle. Melatonin is not a sleep engager. It doesn’t help you fall asleep faster.
What it does is it improves your sleep quality and then it helps regulate your sleep cycle. Melatonin is produced, again, on a cycle. It’s actually created in the morning and then it’s released at night.
I’m going to do a whole other podcast on lifestyle habits to support hormonal balance, but one of them is making sure you’re getting morning sun. Spoiler. Then chamomile tea in the evenings.
It is known to be calming and it can also improve your sleep quality. Having that warm cup of tea before bedtime, making that part of your bedtime routine, which we’ll also talk about later, can be really beneficial. Then going into mood swings and anxiety, probably the third most common complaint that I hear.
The omega-3 fatty acids that you’re eating from getting your fish two to three times a week are going to have not only anti-inflammatory properties, but they’re also going to support your brain health. That can help stabilize the mood and even reduce depressive symptoms. Then B vitamins is another huge component of neurotransmitter function.
We want leafy greens, legumes, eggs. Those are all going to be high in B vitamins. Then number four is weight gain and metabolism changes.
Of course, hormonal changes during perimenopause, we have that reduction or that rollercoaster of estrogen, which causes that visceral fat around the abdomen. That can be very difficult to get off. We are going to go back to the first things that we talked about and that is going to be high fiber foods.
Making sure to regulate your blood sugar levels, promoting fullness, that can help aid in weight management. Then looking at adequate protein, making sure you are getting enough protein. Then of course, exercise is also going to be a component of this.
We’re going to talk about this a little bit later in the lifestyle component, but the fiber and protein intake are all linked to weight management, muscle preservation in postmenopausal women. Another thing is green tea. It actually contains catechins, which help to improve your metabolic rate and prioritize fat burning as energy.
Then bone density. This is not usually something that is high priority for people going into perimenopause. Unfortunately, it needs to be.
It doesn’t become a priority until later when they are diagnosed with osteopenia, osteoporosis, but making sure that in your diet, you are eating high calcium foods. Things like dairy products, leafy greens, almonds, and then vitamin D. Vitamin D helps support calcium absorption and bone health, which reduces your risk of those fractures and breaks and of course, that diagnosis. We’re looking at fatty fish, dairy products, and then we want exposure to that morning sun.
Another reason for the morning sun. This is more so getting into a little bit of a supplementation, but 40% of adults are deficient in vitamin D. So we’re going to talk about this more in the supplementation podcast, but you can also get this from your diet and prioritize these things. Another one is going to be magnesium and vitamin K. So we talked about the magnesium, but leafy greens, nuts, seeds, avocados, those are all going to help support the role of bone mineralization when you have enough calcium.
That was a lot. I hope you took notes. I hope that all resonated.
The reality of it is that your nutrition and lifestyle practices are very powerful foundation to aging gracefully. There are, of course, a lot of other supplements that can help support these efforts, which I plan to dive into, like I said, an upcoming episode all on its own, but I first wanted to emphasize that you cannot out supplement poor nutrition and lifestyle habits. If you’re not prioritizing the things that we talked about today, you will likely not see great results with supplementation either.
I hope this has been helpful and I hope these are things that you will start to implement in your life today. If you want all of this information in a nice neat little package, we have our healthy hormone blueprint, which is linked in the show notes. If you’re feeling a little lost, you really aren’t sure what’s going on, you can take advantage of our free hormone analysis and support call where we’ll give you some more individualized practices to implement based on what you’re experiencing. The link is also below.
And then if you need some more support with implementing this into your life, of course, we can take you step by step into making these changes in a sustainable way to help you look and feel your best. So there’s a link in the show notes to apply for a completely free discovery call to see if you would be a good fit for our coaching program.
Coach Brooke Davis Links:
Website: bdavistraining.com
LinkedIn: Brooke Davis – Owner – Davis Fitness
Facebook: Brooke Davis, CPT
Instagram: Brooke Davis (@brooke_elysian)
Free Community: Women’s Fitness Simplified: Lean down, tone up, build confidence!
Healthy Hormones Guide: https://elysianwomen.myflodesk.com/ki1a5240ag
Hormone Analysis: https://brookedavis.typeform.com/to/quKUjmTI
Schedule a Free Discovery Call!: https://calendly.com/elysianwomenswellness/strategy-call-clone
Women’s Functional Nutritionist & Fitness Specialist along with CEO of Elysian Women’s Wellness.
God, family, fitness – in that order. Fitness isn’t my job, it’s my passion. My favorite things include traveling the world, being a mama and making a difference.
14 years of experience in the wellness industry has brought me to an understanding that when you’re ready – you’ll do it. So when you are, we’re here to keep you simply well.
The last “program” you’ll ever buy. Your individualized training & nutrition plan that teaches the why & how to create lasting changes with me by your side every step of the way!
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